How to Read Modern Poetry

Reading poetry is an adventure in exploring expression and culture. Poetry reflects not only its author, but its period. In modern poetry, the poet's vision becomes paramount expressing his own experiences. The reader must interpret the poem, which stands alone as an art form. The Modern movement in American poetry began in the 1920s.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Start by reading the poem once through.

2. Read with pencil and mark the poem up. Circle repeated or important words. Notice figurative speech such as metaphors and analogies. Expect modern poetry to be dense. Note contradictions and the use of irony.

3. Read the poem out loud. Poetry was originally part of an oral tradition. Read slowly and naturally. Pause at punctuation breaks only. Do not pause at the end of each line.

4. Mull over the poem. Visualize it. Modern poetry is much more visual than traditional poetry. Internalize it. Modern poetry demands the reader to be involved. This becomes creative reading.

5. Study the form of the poem and figure out its meter. The unit of meter is a foot based on stressed and unstressed syllables. The number of feet per line and the number of syllables determine metrical pattern. The rhythm is the natural rise and fall of the voice. You should be able to recognize the meter of modern poetry if it is not free verse.

6. Distinguish between what you can and can't understand about the content of the poem. Decide what the poem is about and its purpose. Determine the subject, the narrator and the poet's attitude.

7. Add to your knowledge by reading books on modern poetry and biographies of your favorite poets. Modern poets include Robert Frost, Amy Lowell, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats and Carl Sandburg.

Tips & Warnings

• Use a dictionary to look up unfamiliar words.
• Free verse is popular with modern poets and doesn't have an identifiable rhyme scheme or set rhythm.
• Blank verse is not free verse. It doesn't rhyme, but uses the form of iambic pentameter (lines made up of ten syllables, with the stress on the even-numbered syllables). Early poets like Shakespeare used blank verse, but 20th century poets like Robert Frost also wrote in this form, which most closely resembles natural English speaking rhythms.